Focus

Double Storm for the IOR

Not only the resignation of its highest-ranking operational directors, but also the revelations about the new "prelate" appointed by Francis. Having been made aware of them, the pope could revoke his appointment soon

by Sandro Magister

ROME, July 3, 2013 – Since the first of this month, the Institute for Works of Religion, IOR, has been at the center of a twofold storm.

Twofold because it is made up not only of the sensational resignations of the director general and of the vice-director of the controversial Vatican “bank,” Paolo Cipriani and Massimo Tulli, but also of another scandal near the point of exploding, concerning the “prelate” of the IOR, Monsignor Battista Ricca, just appointed by Pope Francis.

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As for the resignation of the two highest-ranking operational directors of the IOR, the statement that gave the news on the evening of Monday, July 1 says that “after many years of service both have decided that this action would be in the best interests of the Institute itself and of the Holy See."

The president of the IOR, Ernst von Freyberg - who until the end had expressed trust in the two and had professed to “work together with them in a truly happy way” - has been charged with “taking on 'ad interim' the functions of director general.”

Freyberg will carry out this provisory role with the help of two handpicked fiduciaries: the first, Rolando Marranci, in the capacity of vice-director, and the second, Antonio Montaresi, as Chief Risk Officer.

But it has been announced that the search for a new director general and a new vice-director is already underway. In spite of the fact that Freyberg is now seeking to distance himself from the management of Cipriani and Tulli, for him as well his future as president appears uncertain.

The final blow - but only the last in a series - that led the two to resign was the arrest at the end of June of Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, until the end of May the head of accounting for the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, and dismissed from this role after the opening of a judicial investigation with regard to him, on the part of the Italian magistracy, for the illicit trafficking of money including through accounts at the IOR, with enormous and suspicious transfers authorized by the leading directors of the Institute precisely while the Vatican was engaged in bringing itself into compliance with international anti-laundering norms.

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As for the scandal that is threatening to explode, concerning the new “prelate” of the IOR, it must be said immediately that the first to feel injured by this - even as early as now - is precisely Pope Francis.

Last June 15 Jorge Mario Bergoglio appointed Monsignor Battista Ricca, 57, "prelate" of the IOR precisely in order to place a highly trusted person in a key role within the Institute. With statutory power to access the proceedings and documents and to participate in the meetings both of the cardinalate commission of oversight and of the supervisory board of the Vatican "bank."

Ricca renders diplomatic service at the secretariat of state. But he won the pope's trust above all through the familiar relations he established with him as director of the Domus Sanctae Marthae - where Francis chose to reside - and of two other residences for priests and bishops passing through Rome, including the one on Via della Scrofa at which Bergoglio used to stay as a cardinal.

In covering the news of his appointment as “prelate” of the IOR, the media all over the world agreed in tracing this back personally to the pope and in attributing to the figure a reputation as "incorruptible," as a man suited to “clean house.”

But in the course of his diplomatic career, when he was in service abroad, Ricca left behind himself precedents of a different nature.

After rendering service over the span of a decade in Congo, in Algeria, in Colombia, and in Switzerland, at the end of 1999 he found himself working in Uruguay with the nuncio Janusz Bolonek, from Poland, now a pontifical representative in Bulgaria. But he remained with him for little more than a year. In 2001, Ricca was transferred to the nunciature of Trinidad and Tobago, after which he was called to the Vatican.

The black hole in Ricca's personal history is the year he spent in Uruguay, in Montevideo, on the northern bank of the Rio de la Plata, across from Buenos Aires.

What provoked the rupture with the nuncio Bolonek and his sudden transfer can be summarized in two expressions used by those who confidentially examined his case in Uruguay: “pink power” and “conducta escandalosa.”

Pope Francis was entirely unaware of this precedent when he appointed Ricca prelate of the IOR.

But during the latter half of June, with all the nuncios having convened in Rome to meet with him in person - including during the concert in his honor that he deserted on the 22nd of the month - he became convinced, thanks to not one but several incontrovertible sources, that he had put his trust in the wrong person.

Sadness, gratitude to those who had opened his eyes, the desire to make remedy: these are the sentiments gathered from the sound of the pope's voice during these conversations.

Ricca, having become aware of what was being murmured about him in Uruguay, asked for and obtained a meeting with Francis in order to defend himself and make his own accusations.

But the pope seems determined to act on the basis of the information he has received. Perhaps sooner than foreseen, because in Uruguay the scandal appears close to exploding in public.

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The statement of July 1 on the resignation of Paolo Cipriani and Massimo Tulli: